Grandfathers

This report provides a brief survey of demographic information, a review of the literature on the roles of grandfathers and a comparison of New Zealand literature on grandfathers with the overseas literature.

Families, both in New Zealand and worldwide, are undergoing processes of transformation and redefinition, becoming more heterogeneous in size and structure. Increasing life expectancy, decreasing fertility, changing gender roles, evolving patterns of work, marriage and divorce, all influence family structure including grandparenthood. Grandparents can range in age from under 30 to over 110 and grandchildren from newborns to retirees (Hagestad 1985). Contact between grandparents and grandchildren has been identified in the literature as an integral part of family life.

Grandparents play key roles within families by promoting wide family cohesion and by transmitting knowledge and wisdom over the generations.1 The importance of the grandparent role within families, to provide nurture to other family members, has been recognised in some countries such as the United States, where legislators have adopted laws regarding grandparent visitation rights for their grandchildren (McKay and Caverly 2004).

Thus it is surprising that the contributions which older people make within families have been neglected, and research has instead tended to focus on informal care of older people by family members (Harper 2004). This ignores the complexity of older people’s lives and their interactions within families. The roles, experiences and expectations of grandparents have not been fully explored, and this is especially the case for grandfathers. Research on grandparents, as individuals and as part of families, has concentrated almost exclusively on grandmothers and overlooked the role of men as grandfathers. This role is significant for families in the context of social and economic change, and is related to wider issues of male identity and the roles which older men can play in families.

This paper seeks to redress a gap in our understanding by exploring issues related to grandfathering, and draws on a wide range of published source material. Very little of this relates specifically to New Zealand, so the paper also includes some ideas for groundbreaking research relevant to the local situation.

The objectives of the paper are:

• to examine the situation of grandfathers in New Zealand in the context of social and family change
• to explore the actual and potential roles of older men as grandfathers, within families
• to make comparisons between New Zealand and other comparable countries with respect to grandfathers and grandfathering.